The guardian
‘They said’ go ahead ‘: migrants escorted to Mexico without any explanation
In a chaotic situation on the southern border, agents escort migrants and expel them from the US before they know what is happening Joel Duarte Mendez (25) and his son, Hector, traveled from Honduras to the US to the city of Reynosa for more than twelve days. , Texas. They were flown from the Rio Grande Valley to El Paso and later transported by bus to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian They could not work out exactly where they were or where they were going when the guards told them: “Keep going”. They stepped forward, as indicated, over an unknown bridge and suddenly they were in Mexico. Or, more accurately, back in Mexico. But 800 miles from where they arrived in America. In a chaotic situation on the southern border, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents escort migrants across the bridge connecting downtown El Paso, Texas, with Mexico City’s adjoining city, Ciudad Juárez, and expel them from the U.S. before they even know what is happening . One young mother sits down just directly on the sidewalk on the Mexican side of the international bridge that connects the two cities, holding her breastfeeding child to her while they gather in cold, late March weather. The child, no more than 18 months old, wore a pink sweater and wrapped herself in a blanket and first slept in her arms, unaware of the moments that would make her bewildered mother roll a tear over her face. At one point, the woman covered the girl’s hands with socks to prevent her from crying due to the cold wind, despite the fact that the mother did not have a jacket of her own. A group of migrants quickly deported from the US under Trump’s title 42 guard on the Mexican side of the Paso del Norte International Bridge, between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on March 10, 2021. Photo: Paul Ratje / AFP / Getty Images The sight is all too familiar in Juárez where dozens of migrants are expelled from the US daily without ceremony through a health protocol instituted by the Trump administration, known as Title 42, where migrants can be expelled around the spread of coronavirus in the US. Some undocumented people crossing the US-Mexico border are allowed in the US to start the asylum process, especially unaccompanied minors and theoretically parents with very young children. But most adult migrants and families currently arrested in the U.S. are expelled, though often not before being taken on a confusing and tortuous journey by the U.S. government. “I came through Reynosa, I went to the wall and immigration picked us up,” explained 25-year-old Joel Duarte Mendez, who originally traveled from Honduras. Reynosa is at the eastern tip of the Texas-Mexico border, 754 miles from the cities of Juárez and El Paso at the extreme western tip. After crossing from Reynosa to Texas, Mendez and his two-year-old son, Hector, were briefly detained. “Then they had us in a plane, and from there they put us in a bus and we threw ourselves here,” he pointed to the international bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. I said, ‘this is my chance to go’ and, well, it was simply not the case that US border agents set up the group of people after they got off the bus, took their share across the bridge and then ‘they told us to ‘go on’, “Mendez said. He clings to Hector, the boy wrapped in a jacket that is obviously suitable for his father, who braves the cold weather in a T-shirt. “I came with my son to give him a better life,” Mendez said. Their journey from Honduras to the border took 12 days, he said. He owned a coffee farm and a house in Honduras, but both were destroyed when massive hurricanes hit the country in November last year. As the climate crisis is likely to cause stronger hurricanes, Mendez and Hector have effectively become climate refugees. He used what was left of his money to pay for the trip, he said. ‘We thought they were allowing people with children aged five and under [the US], so I said, ‘this is my chance to go,’ and that was just not the case, ‘he told the Guardian in despair. Families wait in a processing center in Ciudad Juárez for interviews near the Paso del Norte International Bridge. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian Title 42 was the last major piece of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda that closed the border between America and Mexico except for undocumented people in the pandemic. Joe Biden’s administration recalled Trump’s so-called Remain in Mexico policy, where migrants were forced to wait in often dangerous border towns in Mexico while their demands for asylum were processed from violent countries in the US, which sometimes took years. But for those without lawsuits already underway in the U.S., Biden continues to use Title 42 while the pandemic continues. Many who now cross the border are not even officially processed into a border patrol or a department of health and human services, nor are they transferred to the family in the states to make an appointment with the immigration court . They are just being deported to Mexico. Mendez and the breastfeeding mother were among a group of about three-dozen migrants, almost all parents with young children, who had been expelled from the US by the Guardian in recent days. In Juárez, they were escorted by the Mexican authorities to a fenced area, where journalists could not interview them. But tears were visible, and many looked confused. The last mother in line had a young boy in her arms and another small child was walking in front of her. Both children cried as tears began to flow down the woman’s face when she realized she was in Mexico. The group spent more than an hour in the cordoned-off area before it opened and several families poured into the streets of Juárez to take care of it. Those who had contact in the area asked for directions for taxis or called someone to pick them up, but others just sat on the street, unsure of their next step. One father, who was unwilling to share his name, explained that they had never been told where they were or where they were going, as they had recently moved to the US. ‘We were there in the detention center and were waiting for them to contact a family member of ours [in the US] so they can come and get us or send for us, but no, they lied to us, ‘he said. The other father said, “It is completely false that they would allow us with small children.” Four children sit in the streets of Ciudad Juárez after being deported from the USA. Photo: Jorge Salgado / The Guardian There are conflicting reports as to why migrants are being transported from one side of the Texas border to the other, ranging from reports of emergency shelters on both sides of the border, particularly due to Covid-19 restrictions that have closed many or shrunk their capacity, for cruel tactics to simply deter migrants with an extra dose of desperation. Nearby is another family: three children were walking around their mother, the father walking back and forth. He confirmed that they had not received any information from the agents who had suspended them. “Imagine what we’re going through Honduras to get here: walking, driving, feeling hungry, suffering with our children,” he said. “They took our photos, our fingerprints, kept us for three days and then sent us here without signing anything.” Mendez said he thinks things will be different under Biden’s government. He has a brother in Charlotte, North Carolina, who was expecting to pick him and Hector up when Mendez called him with the bad news. “He reprimanded me for taking the trip,” Mendez said. ‘I told him I had no other choice; I do not want us to go hungry. ‘ Now he was stranded in Juárez, thousands of miles from home, with no money to return. Nina Lakhani and Valerie Gonzalez reported